11/07/2023
By Zakkiyya Witherspoon

The School of Education invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Ashley Carey titled, "That Middle School is Trash!!!!" Knowledge Formation About Local Schools on Social Media.

Date: Nov. 16, 2023
Time: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
On-campus Location: Coburn Hall, Room 275
Those interested in attending remotely: please email Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier, Ph.D at least 24 hours prior to the defense to request Zoom access to the meeting.

Co-Chairs: Jack Schneider, Ph.D., Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier, Ph.D., Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Committee Members:

  • Hilary Lustick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Rachel S. White, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, The University of Tennessee Knoxville
  • Hsien-Yuan Hsu, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Abstract:
The public often makes judgments about schools and what happens within them, despite rarely, if ever, setting foot inside of one. Prior research finds that the public relies on word-of-mouth, news media, and online resources that rate and rank schools in order to make decisions. Notably though, much of the existing literature predates the widespread usage of social media. Drawing on mixed methods, I examine how members of one community develop knowledge about their local public schools during the social media era. In article one, I find that emotionally charged posts about first-hand experiences, which often portray the local schools negatively, garner higher levels of engagement than other types of posts. Moreover, special interest actors, usually White moms, are able to harness public desire for “hot” knowledge and the power of Facebook’s algorithm to promote their own agendas. In article two, I find that reliance on Facebook as a source of information is associated with decreased levels of confidence in the local public schools, whereas reliance on word-of-mouth is associated with increased levels of confidence. In article three, I find that knowledge development about schools on Facebook functions similarly to the process of traditional opinion formation. Posters and commenters act as opinion leaders who shape and disseminate information about the schools through opinion frames, while Facebook users act as opinion followers who consume those opinion frames with surprising frequency. Overall, these three articles reveal that biased knowledge on Facebook undermines confidence in the local public schools in the community at the center of this study. As Americans spend less time face-to-face and more time communicating through screens, these findings raise alarms about confidence in local public schools elsewhere and warrant further research.